By Rachel Suh
In Thursday’s Pagosa Springs SUN newspaper — front page news, above the fold — a story about the ACSO targeting individuals in the community describes how two DUI arrests for two individuals were dismissed due to evidence of bounties placed on them.
This is not the first case to be dismissed due to the ACSO’s misconduct this year.
Every single person involved with these bounties needs to be held accountable. Every single person involved with this secret list of “high risk” individuals should resign immediately.
Further, I think the biggest takeaway here is that it isn’t illegal to target people in the community and, “being on the lookout for those in the community who represent a high risk to community safety is not improper,” according to District Attorney Christian Champagne.
I have some legal questions here, because we have a right as taxpayers to have transparency from our government officials in regards to how we are funding their departments. What d oes “represent a high risk to community safety” mean?
Currently, we have a land use regulation being proposed that is targeting what turns out to be several Veterans in our community because some local government officials don’t believe they have a legitimate reason to grow the amount of marijuana they currently are, despite their prescription from a bona fide doctor/patient relationship and approval from the state Marijuana Enforcement Division. Are these individuals being targeted?
What kind of transparency do we have as to what constitutes the definition of “high risk”? Is this definition in any policy, ordinance, statute, act, or amendment? Is there a list that they have?
Does the community have access to this list? Can we submit a CORA request on the list of people the sheriff’s department considers high risk to community safety and what is their policy regarding targeting individuals in the community?
What further incentives are given to public officials in regards to targeting “high risk” individuals and representatives of high risk to safety in the community?
Does this, in and of itself, make this community unsafe when government officials can target anyone wantonly?
Rachel Sunshine Suh has announced her candidacy for Archuleta County Commissioner, District 3.